Re: Hayek and Foucault

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

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Date:         Wed, 4 Nov 1998 04:27:52 EST
Reply-To: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Sender: Hayek Related Research <HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
From: Stephen Carson <SWCarson@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Hayek and Foucault
To: HAYEK-L@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU

     Clearly, Hayek's analysis of power & the state has been superseded
by a far more nuanced view.  But, just for old time's sake, I would like
to try arguing that Hayek's (and, in fact, the Old Whig/classical
liberal) perspective may still have something to offer us that these new
views, as explicated by Williams & Davis, don't seem to have.
     Please chalk up unrelated attempts to defend Hayek to my current
fascination with "pietas", now that I've finally figured out what my
Latin teacher meant by that.

Julietwill@AOL.COM (Juliet Williams) wrote:
>given everything Hayek knew about the perils facing the planning state, he
>nonetheless feared it.  Hayek's own arguments about the obstacles to
>planning and centralizing power should have suggested to him that the real
>danger in the future lies not with a centralized state (which is doomed to
>fail) but rather with a government that recognizes the need to
>decentralize its power in order to maintain hegemony.  Then Hayek might
>have understood that a state which dissipates and, hence, masks its power
>can threaten liberty equally if not more so than a state which tries to
>maximize its direct control.  Hayek was perfectly positioned to
>understand, as Foucault did, that total state poses much less of a threat
>in these times than does the post-modern one in which state power is so
>thoroughly diffused as to be unrecognizable.

     Perhaps I'm thinking about the wrong time horizon, but it seems to
me that the 170 million or so that were marched out to the killing fields
in this century might have had some not entirely irrelevant fears of the
"planning state".  Certainly, despite my understanding of the inherent
instability of the Total State, I thank God regularly that the US hasn't
yet gone through that awkward transition period between the birth of the
Total State & its demise.
     Foucault is probably correct that we are beyond the centralized
state.  But I can't help recalling to mind my re-reading the other night
of the first chapter of R. J. Rummel's _Death By Government_ in which he
details the numerous slaughters (most by centralized states) that have
occurred throughout history prior to the 20th century.  I hope very much
my pessimism about human nature will be disproven, but I think I'll keep
my eyes open just in case.

>Foucault thus offers us something Hayek does not, namely, an imperative to
>resist power.  Hayek is primarily concerned not with promoting resistance,
>but rather with preventing the need for it in the first place.  It is true
>that Hayek concedes a place for participation by his admission that
>democracy is one of the most important safeguards of freedom (LLL3, 5).
>  But Hayek hardly offers a resounding endorsement of participatory
>politics.  In his words, democracy is one of those paramount though
>negative values, comparable to sanitary precautions against the plague.

     Given all this I'm not quite sure what to make of Hayek's personal
efforts, like the Mont Pelerin Society, or of the rumours that Hayek's
writings have had & continue to have an influence on those suffering
under totalitarianism & looking for a sign of hope.
     To be sure, this may be very distant from the sort of participatory
politics that Foucault understands to be effective, but it seems unfair
to say that Hayek had no strategy of resistance at all.
     My own reading of Hayek is of a man who was (since roughly 1922)
engaged in a lifelong resistance against state power.  Admittedly, his
strategy may seem extremely subtle & long-term, but I might even go so
far as to claim that his strategy has already had some effectiveness in
its own small way... And that his intention was that its greatest impact
wouldn't hit until well after his death.


daviserik@HOTMAIL.COM (Erik Davis) wrote:
>Liberals in general tend to limit discussion of "power" to discussion of
>the state, and perhaps Hayek often did the same.

     One might even say that, in the context of a classical liberal
political discussion, the term "power" is short for "state power", (or,
perhaps, coercive power).

>This will seem paradoxical to a liberal--and even more so to a
>conservative (esp. those of Hobbesian persuasion)--because if the rule
>of law must ultimately be "enforced" endogenously then this means
>that--if it were ever to be completely upheld--one could say (1) that
>the state will cease to exist [because there would not be a need for
>exogenous enforcement of rules] or (2) that the "state" will be ALL
>PERVASIVE [because every agent is committed to the rules].  (Certainly,
>just what is "endogenous" and what is "exogenous" should itself be
>brought into question--that would be Foucault's point, no?).  The
>liberal will say (1), the postmodernist will say (2).

     It's probably just six of one, half dozen of another, as you imply.
Though it occurs to me that Rummel's particular concern about the state,
(that it will slaughter its citizens and whoever else comes under its
power), would be allayed in the situation described.  So in this
particular sense, (1) might be the most useful claim to be made.
     It further occurs to me that if Rummel is right, that a society in
which the rule of law is diffused & widely practiced will not kill its
citizens, then would could conjecture that such a society might even
afford more liberties than just to retain one's life.

>If we read Hayek with (2) in mind, Hayek does at times seem to
>politicize EVERYTHING.  For example, in his "Why I am Not a
>Conservative", the Party of Life is not tied to a state.
>
>I wanted to emphasize this in my earlier post (in reply to Gus DiZerega
>and Stephen Carson) by pointing out the analogies between common law
>(tied to state action) and custom (not necessarily tied to the state).
>Common law is a system of precedents which determines where and when
>force can be legitimately applied; customs ("rituals" [INSTITUTIONS!
>{see below}]) function in a completely analogous way.  The POLITICAL
>character of these customs (as, in one form, a "perverse system of
>rituals")--and of challenges to them--is precisely the argument of
>Vaclav Havel's THE POWER OF THE POWERLESS.

     I think this is an excellent point.  Perhaps it's just taste, but
I'm a bit bothered by speaking of the political character of customs.
Certainly customs, (and non-state institutions, like the family &
friendship), have political implications, but to talk about their
political character seems to me to let politics eat too much up.  And I
think we've had quite enough of that.

Stephen W. Carson   <mailto:SWCarson@aol.com>

"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" -Donald Knuth

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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'